601 



GAVIA SABINI. SABINE'S MEW. 



SABINE'S GULL. FORK-TAILED GULL. 



Xema sabiai. Leach in Ross's Voy. App. p. Ivii. 



Larus sabini. Sab. iu Linn. Trans. XIL 620. 



Larus sabini. Jonyns, Brit. Vert. Anim. 270. 



Mouette de Sabine. Lai'us Sabinei. Temm. Man. d'Ornith. lY. 488. 



Bill an inch in length ; tarsus an inch and a half ; toings 

 tivo inches longer than the tail, which is forked ; bill hlack to 

 a little before the nostrils, then yellow ; outer four quills 

 black, with the tips and inner half of inner web to near the 

 end lohite. In summer the head and upper part of neck all 

 round blackish-grey, becoming deep black behind ; the back 

 and wings bluish-grey ; the other parts lohite. 



Not having seen this species, of which only a very few 

 individuals have been met with in Britain, in its winter 

 plumage, I must confine my description of the adult to its 

 summer state, taking for that purpose a specimen from West 

 Greenland. 



Male in Summer. — With the general aspect of the 

 smaller Gavise, this has somewhat of the appearance of a 

 Tern, its body being slender, and its tail somewhat forked. 

 The neck is short, the head of moderate size, ovato-oblong. 



The bill is rather shorter than the head, straight, slender, 

 much compressed, and pointed ; the upper mandible with the 

 dorsal line straight for half its length, then arcuato-declinate, 

 the ridge convex, the sides nearly erect and little convex 

 toward the end, the nostrils nearly linear, the edges sharp 

 and somewhat inflected, the tip very narrow ; the lower man- 

 dible with the intercrural space long and very narrow, the 

 prominence slight, the dorsal line almost straight, being very 



